How To Headshots and Light Paint Portraits

Topic 1: Minimum Gear for Headshots

* Jeff:

* We have had a good thread going in the Facebook group this week about gear for headshots.  By the way listeners, if you aren’t in that group you are missing out on a really fun community of photographers helping each other out and you should consider joining by searching for “Master Photography Podcast” in Facebook and asking to join the group.  You have to answer a question to join and provide the name of a host so Erica, Connor, Brian, or Jeff will all work.
* The thread was All 3 of you at the roundtable can speak from more experience here than I can.  I have done full body shots with the high school mens and womens basketball teams where I use an Impact backdrop stand and a 10×20 muslin, but that is overkill for headshots by a lot.  Eric, let’s start with you. Besides flashes what would you recommend for a photographer who is interested in doing some headshots spending as little as is reasonably possible?


* Erica: Besides flashes, a good portrait lens and a reflector. Choose a 5-in-1 reflector (https://amzn.to/2AxdaQG $12) so that you have a variety of options to work with. For lenses, the most popular headshot lenses are 50 mm, 85 mm, and 70-200 mm because of their lack of distortion and their delicious bokeh.  Use reflector for fill light.
* Brian: The sun. Reflector – car pop-up sun shield thingy. Assistant w/ white shirt. To me, the minimum is just your camera and playing with any natural light.
* Jeff:

* Initially my advice was a c-stand and a popup gray background, but looking at it as we were getting ready to record I would go with Fotodiox 5×7 collapsible black/white backdrop kit with stand (https://amzn.to/2n37IeC $80) as the least expensive option I could find that would get you going.  May not last too long, but would get you going for only $80.
* That option is also black and white and I would prefer a gray backdrop so that I can get lots of backgrounds by changing the lighting, so maybe consider the Fovitec StudioPro 5×6.5 gray/blue collapsible backdrop (https://amzn.to/2v5Emk6 $60) combined with the Fovitec StudioPro Pop Out stand and reflector clip (https://amzn.to/2vtrQdR $26) that sets you back $86 in total and the stand is something that may last a little longer.



Topic 2: Headshot Technique

* Jeff: I want to get more technique discussed on the show, so now that we have given advice on the gear to invest in to get started into headshots, I want each of you to share how it is you got going with them.  How did you start getting clients paying you to do headshots. First though, I wanted to ask Erica to walk through technique on doing headshots. Let’s assume you are hired to go onsite and do a few hundred corporate headshots.  You just arrived, you setup your backdrop, walk us through step-by-step how you setup your camera in relation to the backdrop, where you are putting lights, what settings you are dialing into the camera, how you determine the power of the flash, etc.
* Erica:

* One light clamshell setup.  Light on the right with reflector on the left, or vice-versa.  Have the model face the flash
* Can do clamshell with the light above and the reflector below too
* May take a couple of shots with different lighting so that the customer can choose if there is time.


* Jeff: Now Brian, you have done some paid headshots too right?  How did you get those paid jobs?
* Brian: Most of it is word of mouth or previous clients/brides/grooms needing a headshot for their job.
* Jeff: I have had some success from family and friends asking if they could have me take a good shot of them for their social media profiles.